{"id":19026,"date":"2025-09-13T15:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T15:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=19026"},"modified":"2025-09-13T15:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T15:04:12","slug":"ai-avatars-bring-comfort-but-cant-replace-grieving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=19026","title":{"rendered":"AI avatars bring comfort but can\u2019t replace grieving"},"content":{"rendered":"
Diego Felix Dos Santos never expected to hear his late father\u2019s voice again \u2014 until\u00a0AI\u00a0made it possible. \u201cThe tone of the voice is pretty perfect,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u00a0feels\u00a0like,\u00a0almost, he’s here.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the 39-year-old’s father unexpectedly passed away\u00a0last year, Dos Santos travelled to his native Brazil to be with family. It was only after returning to his home in Edinburgh, Scotland, that he says he realized \u201cI had nothing to actually remind [me of] my dad.” What he did have, though, was a voice note his father sent him from his hospital bed.<\/p>\n

In July, Dos Santos took that voice note and, with the help of Eleven Labs \u2014 an artificial intelligence-powered voice generator platform founded in 2022 \u2014 paid a $22 monthly fee to upload the audio and create new messages in his father\u2019s voice, simulating conversations they never got to have.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi son,\u00a0how\u00a0are you?” his father\u2019s voice rings out from the app, just as it would on their usual\u00a0weekly calls. \u201cKisses. I love you, bossy,\u201d the voice adds, using the nickname his father gave him when he was a boy.<\/p>\n

Although Dos Santos\u2019 religious family initially had reservations about him using\u00a0AI\u00a0to communicate with his father beyond the grave, he says they\u2019ve since come around to his choice. Now, he and his wife, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, are considering creating\u00a0AI\u00a0voice clones of themselves too.<\/p>\n

Dos Santos\u2019 experience reflects a growing trend where people are using\u00a0AI\u00a0not just to create digital\u00a0likenesses, but to simulate the dead. As these technologies become more personal and widespread, experts warn about the ethical and emotional risks \u2014 from questions of consent and data protection to the commercial incentives driving their development.<\/p>\n

The market for\u00a0AI\u00a0technologies designed to help people process loss, known as \u201cgrief tech,\u201d has grown exponentially in recent years. Ignited by US\u00a0startups such as StoryFile\u00a0(an\u00a0AI-powered video tool that lets people record themselves for posthumous playback) and HereAfter AI\u00a0(a voice-based app that creates interactive avatars of deceased loved ones), this tech markets itself as a means to cope with, and perhaps even forestall, grief.<\/p>\n

Robert LoCascio founded Eternos, a Palo Alto-based startup that helps people create an\u00a0AI\u00a0digital twin, in 2024 after losing his father. Since then, more than 400 people have used the platform to create interactive\u00a0AI\u00a0avatars, LoCascio says, with subscriptions starting from $25 for a legacy account that allows a person’s story to remain accessible to loved ones after their death.<\/p>\n

Michael Bommer, an engineer and former colleague of LoCascio\u2019s, was among the first to use Eternos to create a digital replica of himself after learning of his terminal cancer diagnosis. LoCascio says Bommer, who died last year, found closure in leaving a piece of himself behind for his family. His family has found closure from it too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt captures his essence\u00a0well,\u201d his wife Anett Bommer, who lives in Berlin, Germany, told Reuters in an email. \u201cI feel him close in my life through the\u00a0AI\u00a0because it was his last heartfelt project and this has now become part of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal of this technology isn\u2019t to create digital ghosts, says Alex Quinn, the CEO of Authentic Interactions Inc, the Los Angeles-based parent company of StoryFile. Rather, it’s to preserve people\u2019s memories while they\u2019re still around to share them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese stories would cease to exist without some type of interference,\u201d Quinn says, noting that while the limitations of\u00a0AI\u00a0clones are obvious \u2014 the avatar will not know the\u00a0weather outside or who the current president is \u2014 the results are still worthwhile. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone ever wants to see someone\u2019s history and someone\u2019s story and someone\u2019s memory completely go.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the biggest concerns surrounding grief tech is consent: What does it mean to digitally recreate someone who ultimately has no control over\u00a0how\u00a0their\u00a0likeness is used after they die? While some firms such as Eleven Labs allow people to create digital\u00a0likenesses of their loved ones posthumously, others are more restrictive.<\/p>\n

LoCascio from Eternos, for example, says their policy restricts them from creating avatars of people who are unable to give their consent and they administer checks to enforce it, including requiring those making accounts to record their voice twice. \u201cWe\u00a0won’t cross the line,\u201d he says. \u201cI think, ethically, this doesn’t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eleven Labs did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

In 2024,\u00a0AI\u00a0ethicists at Cambridge University published a study calling for safety protocols to address the social and psychological risks posed by the \u201cdigital afterlife industry\u201d Katarzyna Nowaczyk-Basi\u0144ska, a researcher at Cambridge\u2019s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and co-author of the study, says commercial incentives often drive the development of these technologies \u2014 making transparency around data privacy essential.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u00a0have no idea\u00a0how\u00a0this (deceased person\u2019s) data will be used in two or 10 years, or\u00a0how\u00a0this technology will evolve,\u201d Nowaczyk-Basi\u0144ska says. One solution, she suggests, is to treat consent as an ongoing process, revisited as\u00a0AI\u00a0capabilities change.<\/p>\n

But beyond concerns around data privacy and exploitation, some experts also worry about the emotional toll of this technology. Could it inhibit the\u00a0way\u00a0people deal with grief?<\/p>\n

Cody Delistraty, author of \u201cThe Grief Cure\u201d, cautions against the idea that\u00a0AI\u00a0can offer a shortcut through mourning. \u201cGrief is individualized,\u201d he says,\u00a0noting that people can’t put it through the sieve of a digital avatar or\u00a0AI\u00a0chatbot and expect to “get something really positive.”<\/p>\n

Anett Bommer says she didn\u2019t rely on her husband\u2019s\u00a0AI\u00a0avatar during the early stages of her own grieving process, but she doesn\u2019t think it would have affected her negatively if she had. \u201cThe relationship to loss hasn’t changed anything,\u201d she says, adding that the avatar \u201cis just another tool I can use alongside photos, drawings, letters, notes,” to remember him by.<\/p>\n

Andy Langford, the clinical director of the UK-based bereavement charity Cruse, says that while it\u2019s too soon to make concrete conclusions about the effects of\u00a0AI\u00a0on grief, it\u2019s important that those using this technology to overcome loss don\u2019t \u201cget stuck\u201d in their grief. \u201cWe\u00a0need to do a bit of both \u2014 the grieving and the living,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

For Dos Santos, turning to\u00a0AI\u00a0in his moment of grief wasn’t about finding closure \u2014 it was about seeking connection. \u201cThere\u2019s some specific moments in life … that I would normally call him for advice,\u201d Dos Santos says. While he knows\u00a0AI\u00a0can\u2019t bring his father back, it offers a\u00a0way\u00a0to recreate the \u201cmagical moments\u201d he can no longer share.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diego Felix Dos Santos never expected to hear his late father\u2019s voice again \u2014 until\u00a0AI\u00a0made it possible. \u201cThe tone of the voice is pretty perfect,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u00a0feels\u00a0like,\u00a0almost, he’s here.\u201d After the 39-year-old’s father unexpectedly passed away\u00a0last year, Dos Santos travelled to his native Brazil to be with family. It was only after returning to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}